The Met Office have adopted the "shit against the wall" strategy where if you throw enough shit, eventually some will stick. This is the reason why every spring they publish a forecast that predicts record high temperatures, drought, etc only for the summer to be a typical British slightly wet washout. Bournemouth Council were considering suing the Met Office after an adverse forecast kept the beaches empty on a hot weekend. These people shouln't be trusted with a computer. They'd have as much success with some seaweed and a pinecone.Honestly, if they can't accurately forecast two weeks in the future, why do we listen to their three monthly flight of fancy, or their fifty year crystal ball musings?Once again the BBC continue to give creedence to this mumbo jumbo priesthood,as they have completely bought into the whole politically motivated AGW myth, and rely on it as a cornerstone of their faith.

They keep harking on about 'global temperatures' but the network of data is pretty shoddy, misses massive areas of land and ocean and they adjust it to suit their own whims. Plus they tend to compare it to an average that discards the last decade or two of data in order to exaggerate the supposed warming.

My new boyfriend who is a ladies hairdresser who teases the locks of mostly old female pensioners, told me that one of his customers told him that her pussy is now almost bald. She believes it is because of global warming and it no longer needs to be so furry. Another old lady told him her budgie had shed all its feathers. Perhaps we should all listen more to old ladies as they have lots of experience regarding the weather and how it has changed. It just a shame they tend to smell of stale urine and mothballs.

Caesar's Wife: When climate changes so, too, does flora and fauna. There are no palm trees growing around here; no polar bears hanging around my dustbin; no bird-eating spiders lurking under the local bushes. Nature does not lie. There is no doubt at all that the world's climate is changing. Britain has been covered in ice up to 3km thick; it has been desert; it has been sub-tropical; it has been cool and changeable; and it has been warm and changeable. Many times, and long before man appeared.

If burning fossil fuels is causing any changes, these changes will stop when those fossil fuels run out. Soon. Any extra CO2 produced in the meantime will enhance plant growth, helping to feed millions of hungry people.

By contrast, a single, major explosion from a volcano will spew out many tons of shading volcanic ash, leading to to rapid and prolonged cooling. Then we worry.

The whole 50% thing actually makes a whole lot more sense if you read the rest of the sentence, which OH didn't include in the quote (accidental ommission, I'm sure):

"The weather forecaster said there is a 50 per cent chance that the world average temperature in 2010 will be warmer than in 1998, which is the warmest on record in the Met Office’s 160 years of data."

Not saying that I believe in climate change, but not saying that you should believe everything you read on this blog either...

Although its 50/50 that 'generally' one year will be warmer (or cooler) than another year, if the chosen reference year is a particularly warm year, it follows that the comparison year has a greater chance of being cooler.

Anon 12:50 yes I get that bit, large events such as volcanic or asteroid impacts are the ones where we can say , cause massive deaths to flora and fauna , so plenty to worry about with them .

The problem is not resolved , as the burning of fossil fuels is a kind of continuous event mostly from 1850 onwards , starting in the west right up to today when whole world is burning either coal or oil . The ammount that gets burnt every day is significant , the problem is it goes somewhere , if it has no effect on global temperature then that needs explaining.

caesar 14:35 If you cannot answer what data sets would prove global warming theory , I laugh at your degree in trouser billiards

OH , you well know that isnt the argument , the ice is melting photos and even paintings show that, we are recording it !! last time sunspot activity was this low was 1920 .

its 18 days to shortest day and we have temperatures of 14oc at night , ie days are shorter but it is till warm , either gulf stream is warmer , cool air in artic is not moving south or just not big enough anymore, or atmosphere now is storing heat .

geddit shortest day and its still warm , heat must be non direct solar !!

good news is warmer weather means heating on poorly insulated houses doesnt need as much , so saves some winter CO2 emissions , bad news as no long frosts native berrys dont set there clocks , if apple blossoms early due to warm weather and then late frost loss of crop . (and no cider) . When you think about it not really somthing you want to be too wrong about.

Its only in the last year or so that i began to doubt the political spin of global warming , namely that they were doing so little about it as you say using our taxes for spin on it .

whilst somthing at CRP was clearly wrong , it doesnt mean that its all wrong .

I dont have all the answers by a long way ,but it simply isnt good enough to write off some aspects as looney .

i dont know how best to answer it , as it looks like for some considerable time any science is going to get laughed at , if ive been taken in by other spin fair enough , then when someone comes along and expalins that all man made pollution is not doing anything , you can then award me the tin foil hat .

No the govt cannot stop apple blossom getting and early frost , but it will hurt the economy if there are natural forces that begin to act against native flora and fauna .

My postion is I havent closed the book , just because weve found somthing rotten being govt funded , I am like that because I like science . I am not against your position OH, it may after all be as valid as mine in the absence of conclsuive truth .Your position is right because govt have not being honest about the situation , what the real situation remains to be seen .

anon 19:45 given france is three times the size of the Uk , bit bigger spread , and what about wheat yields year before due to drought , bread prices rocketed , dont you geddit climate change reduces ability to crop , less stability food production introuble , you cant change a field crop 2 months into growing it .

"Ms Pope said there was no need to review data from the university. She said: “Some people are going to extraordinary lengths to try to discredit the global warming signal from observed datasets. If there really was a problem with the data it would be obvious to everybody.”"

It is, bitch.

I was going to say what are her scientific qualifications, but I don't trust scientists anymore, so she can fuck off and die regardless.

... Some people are going to extraordinary lengths to try to discredit the global warming signal from observed datasets.

Given, as is now known, that warming, as measured by current methods and technology, has levelled off over the past decade, the assertion that "there is a 50 per cent chance that the world average temperature in 2010 will be warmer than in 1998, which is the warmest on record in the Met Office’s 160 years of data." is still bollocks and yet another example that the MET/Hadley axis are unreformed shaman witch doctors of the climate statistics world.

By any objective standard, given the context and timing of its release, the above statement by the MET is a deceitful low blow worthy of only the most unrepentant fraudster. Anyone who thinks that OH's omission of the latter part of that quote constitutes some form of deception is looking in the wrong place.

In addition "She (Ms Pope) said the Met Office was more than 90 per cent certain that human activities were to blame ... (and) there was no need to review data from the university.". One would have thought that the pro-AGW lobby would welcome the opportunity to see MET/Hadley results vindicated (and perhaps even reinforced) by a review of their data and methods. A rather telling demonstration of coyness from Ms Pope, no?

Regardless of whether one believes that human CO2 production could or will lead to catastrophic global warming, is it not clear to all concerned that the pro-AGW 'movement' a) conducts its affairs in the language, manner and style of a fraudulent for-profit cult b) is supported, almost exclusively, by scientists with a vested financial and professional interest in results which emphasise extreme outcomes over uncertainty and alternative explanations c) actively surpresses scientists and findings that do support the cult dogma.

Scientific training is not something that all have benefited from but it is not, given the actual scientific uncertainty involved, the most important tool for judging the pro-AGW movement. Students of human nature will have seen through the shrill, deceitful, bullying, money-grubbing pro-AGW movement long ago.

Human contribution to global warming, via CO2 or any other mechanism, is worthy of investigation but not by those who have aligned themselves with the current pro-AGW movement. Even those given to assuming the worst should know that by now.

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is it's justice; that is its morality.